


Harem AU

by purplekitte



Category: Horus Heresy - Various Authors, Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harem, Consent Issues, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Power Imbalance, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2014-07-23
Packaged: 2018-02-22 19:12:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2518730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplekitte/pseuds/purplekitte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: *whispers gently to ear* a harem au with all first captains/champions</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cross-posted from [tumblr](http://adepta-astarte.tumblr.com/post/91081468231/whispers-gently-to-ear-a-harem-au-with-all-first)

Sigismund shivered as he sat on his new primarch’s bed. His room was well lived-in, which only made sense. The _Phalanx_ was his ship, not one he’d been issued by the Mars along with his Legion.

He was nervous. Astartes weren’t supposed to know fear, but uncertainty was still difficult to deal with. After days of formal ceremonies of investiture, he faced a duty for which he hadn’t been instructed on the exact, step-by-step procedure and seen done by other primarchs and other first captains before him. It had happened, but not with an audience, obviously. He really should have had a serious talk with Gabriel Santor rather than just having Abaddon’s vague teasing to extract useful information from.

Should he have waited to be summoned? He didn’t want his primarch to be kept waiting or to think he was totally without initiative. Should he strip down? That seemed overly presumptuous. Dorn might want to undress him himself, or not want him now.

Might not want him at all. He worried about that, though he knew it wasn’t likely based on the five primarchs he knew of so far. It was a primarch's right to make whatever use he wanted of anyone in the Legion, but it was generally understood that his relationship with his first captain would be special, that he would be the first man his primarch turned to for anything, his greatest general and champion, his confidant, his closest lover. But it was hardly a rule. Russ, for instance, didn’t dislike or neglect the captain of his first company, but everyone knew his favourite was the captain of his thirteenth, his childhood friend. What if Dorn too had a lover from Inwit he planned to raise to the ranks of the Astartes, or he disliked the Terran-born?

He told himself to hush. If Dorn didn’t want him, that was his right. It was Sigismund’s duty to show his willingness to do what was asked of him in all things, and work out the details of what his primarch would want of him.

His primarch returned to his quarters. He appeared... less stiff than he had been, standing in front of crowds, but he narrowed instantly in on Sigismund without showing any surprise. ‘First Captain Sigismund. You have an additional briefing for me that requires confidentiality?’

‘Yes, my lord. There are various details for you to rule on privately. I’m to ask how you’d like your companionship summoned to you. It can wait, like other administrative matters, if you want me now, of course.’

‘Want you?’

Sigismund swallowed. ‘I can summon another else who has caught your eye. I am honoured you chose to retain me as your first captain, but it is your Legion now.’

‘Captain, what do you think I want of you now?’ Dorn asked slowly, like speaking to a child or someone speaking a foreign language.

He was able to tentatively interpret this look of Dorn’s: incomprehension. The Black Knight chose action over words, as he was wont to, and rose from his bed, then onto the toes of his boots in order to kiss him.

Dorn had not moved all the while, and finally pushed him away. ‘Do you mean to say you expect me to treat my own warriors like... bed-warmers?’

‘I am sworn to you, body and soul.’ Simple.

‘Are you a concubine in my harem then?’

‘Yes.’ He hadn’t heard it put that way, except perhaps in the flowery poetry the IIIrd was prone to, but it didn’t sound wrong. ‘It is your right to summon me, or any in the Legion, whenever you will to see to any of your needs, and my great honour to do so. I can warm your bed for you each night before you return to it if that is your will. If it is to send me away, I will never darken your door unless summoned, my lord.’

‘What consequences would that have?’

‘For you, none. It is your right to do as you will, answerable only to the Emperor Himself. For me, nothing of importance.’

‘Captain, when I ask you to report, I demand an honest answer. Not what you think I want to hear. Not excluding what you think I’d be better off not knowing. Now report.’

‘Yes, sir. My position would be less secure. Many would doubt me; they would think you hate me or intend to demote me.’

‘Are you such rumourmongers?’

‘It is a large Legion, my lord. We number in the tens of thousands. None of us know you yet. Most will never be so privileged as to have anything to do with you. We must rely on your deeds and proclamations and the words of our brothers in order to know you.’

‘Would there be consequences of taking no other to my bed?’

‘None to speak of, my lord,’ he said, and this time his primarch saw he was true.

‘Do you even want to be here? We’ve hardly met. Don’t say a word about duty or honour.’

Of course. How could he not? Lupercal or the Phoenician had flirted with him before and that took his breath away and wasn’t even his primarch. It had never gone beyond flirting, naturally. It would have been a terrible faux pas to a brother they had not met yet, though they were known to teasingly (or not so teasingly, by some gossip) offer to lend out their own favourites to each other.

He barely knew him. He wanted to. Every hint of his personality he had seen glimpses of so far, controlled and honourable, made him want to know more. He wanted to puzzle him out like watching a flower unfurl and see if all their edges and angles fit together as well as he hoped they did. Duty was duty and he _would_ do anything for it, but there was little in the life of an Astartes he did not also exalt in, on the battlefield and here.

‘Yes.’

Dorn kept his own counsel until he had reached a conclusion. ‘This is not the way of the people who raised me. Perhaps it will not always feel wrong to me when I know better the culture of the Legion and why my father’s Imperium is as it is. For now, I refuse to do anything I cannot take back. I will not take advantage of you or shame you like a whore...’ He cut himself off. ‘For the sake of your reputation, I will not send you away tonight.’

‘I can guard your doorway, my lord. It is no hardship.’

Dorn scowled and shook his head. ‘There’s no need to leave you exiled to the cold of my threshold-rug. I have a large bed because I take up most of it, but not all of it. You can say honestly that you’ve shared it with me.’

*

Sigismund learned many things about Rogal Dorn fighting for him and sharing his bed, if a corner of it with an invisible line never crossed. His unwavering loyalty, to those he served and those who served him, his sternness and his kindness, his stubbornness and honesty, his rigidity and his hope.

He learned detail and detail about him, like how on Inwit whole families would sleep together for warmth, from elders to children to livestock. Sleeping alone was alien to him. To have Sigismund sleep propped against his door or on a couch would be like saying he had less value than a dog, like he were the lowest sort of whore or scullion used to warm the bed for their masters but not allowed to sleep in it in moralistic tales of the strong abusing the weak.

He learned how he fought and how he built. He learned what he would not do even for victory and what would make his primarch smile faintly at him.

He couldn’t imagine how he could have felt only obligation and primarch-awe towards Dorn before, for certainly that had been it. Sigismund loved him with an ache he could have choked on now, and it was breathtaking to look back on decades of his life and realise he had gone so long incomplete, without that.

And he desired him. When they’d first met he’d have given his body because it was expected of him. He understood now what Dorn had meant, the wrongness of taking advantage of obligation and sheer magnetism. Now he wanted, the man himself.

They were comfortable and Sigismund didn’t want to break that comfort by asking for more. They hadn’t spoken of it again, though they shared a bed. Not every night, Astartes let alone primarchs didn’t sleep every night, but as often as they did. Dorn might still not want him. Yet other times he wondered if he were being courted, glowing with pride at the favour bestowed upon him.

He thought about reaching across the bed and putting a hand on his arm or chest. About that one stolen kiss. He thought about it too often. He saw now why it was so taken for granted that a first captain’s place was in his primarch’s bed; the very thought that his lord _might_ want him and Sigismund had not persuaded him to let him please him was an almost physical hurt. He wished he would accidentally roll over closer to him in his sleep, but to pretend at doing such a thing unconsciously when he wasn’t he would never, ever do. He thought about telling Dorn one day _Oh, by the way, I want you like burning._ Just so he would know, a new piece of information to add to his weighing of matters.

He hated a stalemate. They weren’t the IVth here, waiting out a siege, and it was hardly a secret he was among the most hot-headed of all the Legion. He was the Black Knight. He wanted action. The charge into the enemies of humanity with sword at the ready. Even a rejection would have to be more tolerable than never taking that first step.

‘My lord,’ he said one night over survey maps of an uninhabited planet they needed to check over one more time for nasty surprises before handing over to the Mechanicus. ‘I have a petition.’

‘Speak, my son.’ The softness in Dorn’s eyes was indulgent, curious, perhaps fond.

‘Reconsider our relationship. Once you permitted me to share your bed for politics. That need has long since passed. You gave me a “maybe”.’ Which was more to the point. Dorn would never have compromised on something he believed was wrong for political expedience. Something he was admittedly unsure of was different. ‘Neither of us understood each other then or our situation. I don’t know what you think of me or believe my motivations are. If you’ve decided it would be wrong to lay hands on me, then I will never ask again. This routine we have now is precious to me, for as long as you would have me as your companion. If you would consider me as a potential lover, I beg you to do so.’

Dorn sighed. ‘Some part of me hoped to take the easy way out: that you would see your duty had been redefined, or infatuation would fade. I knew that to be a vain wish. It would have been easy to deny myself doing something truly wrong were our desires not in harmony. There could be no greatest abuse of authority: not just to act selfishly, but to make the abused believe they deserved such treatment. I would never force you. I don’t know that I can deny you. You are my first captain.’

That said everything. How absolutely they fit together. The entwinement of their destinies. It was a declaration not of love or respect or trust but of codependence and the absolute rightness of their balance.

They needed nothing more. To be primarch and first captain was completeness enough. Yet, Sigismund desired Dorn and Dorn desired Sigismund, and that was only another brick to add to the walls around the two of them, keeping out the cold.

‘Will you have me now?’ he asked, like he had once before. Rough as his voice was, it didn’t break or hesitate. He didn’t mind the failure of control he did show for once. He wanted Dorn to hear his emotions on his breath.

‘On Inwit we do not rush into these things. We cannot afford strife when we all must huddle together for warmth. We cannot afford children the community cannot support. We cannot let our passions run unchecked. We do not court easily, for we commit seriously when we do. To act from lust alone is... debase.’ He said the word as another would say ‘blasphemous’, if they believed in such ideas. ‘I honour you.’

‘Will you kiss me?’

That Dorn would, slowly and carefully as he’d promised. He could bury away his own lust with those arms around him, unable to hold a single fantasy in his head when his world revolved around the lips on his.

Dorn had been purposefully maintaining distance. Sigismund wasn’t much for architecture for an Imperial Fist, so he hadn’t realised how sabotaged their sleeping arrangements had been. Dorn built a proper cocoon of blankets, meant for them to curl around each other and share heat, and Sigismund was warm against the cold air in a way he hadn’t been since his barely remembered childhood in the ice wastes of Terra. On Inwit that was not intimacy associated with lovers, but with family. Yet, the former needed to become the latter before it might be consummated.

*

Sigismund knew he would have to make the first move. It was a simple fact. Dorn was not, as a general statement, overly cautious or anything but resolute, for all that he sometimes chastised Sigismund for recklessness. He had, at some point, entrusted Sigismund with setting the pace. The slow progression could have been maddening, but he chose to take it as a challenge. He had always been taught it was his responsibility to please his primarch; that had just taken a different direction than he had originally expected.

He eased Dorn into it like taming a wild animal. He made moves one by one, not pushing any further until Dorn was thoroughly comfortable with them. Until Dorn would put an arm on or over his shoulder at odd moments, would kiss him in bed and out of it, would lay against him skin on skin. People noticed, not just their closer contact, but the deeper ease between them, as a barrier between them their whole acquaintance had fallen away.

He waited for a good day, a day everything felt right. They’d won a victory against xenos, enough to get the blood pumping but at little cost to their own. Dorn was happy as the expedition fleet moved out, more affectionate with him than usual. He waited for one of those times his primarch woke up uncomfortably hard and put a hand on Dorn’s hip before he could slip away to deal with it privately or go do penance (which he always hoped meant ‘I wanted to screw you silly even though I told myself I wasn’t going to yet’). ‘Let me,’ he asked.

Dorn kissed him, measured and thoughtful. His hand was warm on the back of his neck as he sat back to address him. ‘For all that I don’t rail against the idea of this, I do not possess the most experience.’ Dorn blushed faintly. ‘Any experience, to be exact.’

He knew that, but it needed said. ‘I am your concubine, aren’t I?’ he teased. ‘All you need to do is let me hear what you like.’ Dorn’s gasp as the tips of his fingers ran down the soft skin of his aching cock were answer to that.

Dorn never had to resort to his own hand again, not when he had Sigismund to stroke him through it. He still treasured the sheer shock and loss of control he’d managed to garner the first time he’d leaned down to use his mouth as well as his hands. Sigismund could sigh against his collarbone at Dorn stroking between his legs, returning the favour.

Dorn was not exactly clumsy, a primarch wasn’t capable of that, but his movements reminded Sigismund of a neophyte with everything he needed implanted by hypno-conditioning but no experience translating that into action or muscle memory. He had the knowledge and the urges, but he thought too much about whether he should put them together. As they did things and he saw that they were good, he became bolder, more accepting.

Sigismund showed him they didn’t have to wait. They could touch because they wanted to, draw up the hormones in each other from a banked coal to a blaze, and lie together tired and satiated.

Finally, Dorn pulled away from the wonderful thing his tongue had been doing around Sigismund’s fingers and pulled him across his chest. ‘Show me.’

Sigismund grit his teeth to not moan at that alone. He couldn’t think of a single thing to say, so he did what was asked of him, letting Dorn’s cries fill his silence as he worked fingers into him. A primarch didn’t strictly need the preparation, but that wasn’t the point. He wanted to see Dorn slowly come undone at the brush of his fingers over his entrance, the alien sensation of one finger inside him, then a second, the strangeness fading and turning to pleasure as Sigismund found the exact spot to brush against inside him.

Dorn worked lube over his cock, getting his own back at Sigismund’s sharp gasps and twitching hips. Guided by his firm grip, Sigismund pushed inside him.

It was everything he could do to not come right away with the heat around him and Dorn’s pleased groan. He wanted to do this right for his primarch, to keep up the steady rhythm that he bucked his hips up into. He bit his shoulder to keep some degree of control, and it didn’t work in the least when Dorn moaned at that, his body clenching around Sigismund.

He reached between them to stroke Dorn, giving up all attempts to hold anything in his mind except how good this felt, how right, every reminder of how much Dorn was enjoying this, wanted him. They came together, the world narrowed to heat and friction and each other.

‘First Captain,’ Dorn breathed against his lips as they rested together in their warm nest of blankets.

‘My Primarch,’ he answered, in his arms where he belonged.


	2. Chapter 2

The First Captain of the VIIIth Legion was strong, he had to have been to have kept his position for so long, but he was always a little off and it only became more obvious when their primarch was found and the Legion solidified around him. He was good enough, but no Abaddon, no Sigismund, no Ahriman: someone who had it impossible to imagine anyone else holding the rank.

The young upstart killed him. Sevatarion, one of the new Nostraman recruits instead of the Terran old-guard, with a meteoric rise to command one of the squads of the first company entrusted with the new and rare Terminator armour Mars had given them. Few had had the opportunity to know him well, yet. He smirked, proud and confident, drops of blood flying off his chainglaive as he spun it, though that was by no means a proper cleaning like the fine weapon deserved and would get later.

Plenty of those watching the duel left after Curze sealed his new first captain’s appointment with a possessive kiss. He might have killed the challenger too and started over from scratch, but to all indications he approved.

Some stayed, and watched one or the other of them intensely, jealously; others because this was simply as much a part of confirming a new first captain as the blood and death had been.

Curze didn’t stop at a kiss. He tore off armour and pushed him down over the corpse and claimed Sevatar right there. Sevatar offered no complaint at the audience or the roughness, the pain he must have been in from his wounds and the violence with which the primarch took him. On his face there was only triumph. Only satisfaction.

After him, there could be no other for the Legion.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus thinks it would be a great idea to make Perturabo eavesdrop on Forrix’s wet-dreams. Perturabo is not appreciative.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cross-posted from [tumblr](http://adepta-astarte.tumblr.com/post/92676556156/harem-au-magnus-thinks-it-would-be-a-great-idea)
> 
> Building off some additional meta [here](http://adepta-astarte.tumblr.com/post/91490762196/a-little-more-harem-au-meta-more-something-no), [Perturabo fic](http://absurdfact.tumblr.com/post/91426403966/harem-au-perturabo) by absurdfact, and [Horus/Loken fic](http://wolffyluna.tumblr.com/post/91520012769/my-offering-for-the-harem-au-loken-horus-just) by wolffyluna

It wasn’t as if he had planned to make a scene, nor had he. He was hardly the guardian of morality in the Imperium, whatever his opinions and disapproval of others’ practices. Sanguinius had shouted an encouragement to some of his men, training--they had been doing perfectly well but it was much more effusive than they deserved, they were Astartes, a standard of excellence was to be taken for granted--and then they had blushed, cast their primarch flattered looks from beneath lowered lashes, and Perturabo had gone cold and hot at once with rage.

Damn Magnus for noticing, and damn him more for playing heavy-handed tricks on him ‘for his own good’. Magnus thought everything in life could be solved if only everyone had more _information_ , never mind when people wanted to be left alone, especially in their own heads.

If he’d been awake, Forrix would never have dared fantasise about his primarch so. He had too much propriety and professionalism for that. But he was not awake, and the deeply buried recesses of his mind bubbled to the surface.

Everyday he thought of resigning his post. He had failed his primarch as first captain. Maybe someone else could do right by him, could give Perturabo what he needed, all the things Forrix couldn’t give him--couldn’t make his primarch let him give him. Yet he didn’t--selfish as it might be, he couldn’t bring himself to give up such favour and attention from his primarch that he had. Even if he should be better, he could not.

Astartes from other Legions of lower rank or no rank at all never expected to share their primarch’s bed and, though they’d jump at the chance (who wouldn’t?), didn’t seem overly concerned they never would. There were so many of them after all. They were content knowing their primarch’s desires were being seen it, something many times more important than the question of whether they were being seen to by them personally.

Forrix wondered how it was possible to be like that. Maybe it would be different, if there weren’t the constant reminder like a wound that wouldn’t heal that his primarch had no succour. He could put the whole line of thought aside and give it no more attention than he did second-guessing the supply officers and Legion serfs who brought his primarch food, knowing that if left to his own devices Perturabo would live on wine.

Still, he couldn’t imagine not being sick with jealousy. It was always that way in the IVth Legion, they didn’t delude themselves. Everything was finite and in few things was there enough to go around. For one battle-brother to have their father’s attention meant no one else did just then. For someone to be acknowledged as having done the best, everyone else must not have done as well and would not be so praised. For one’s victory, there must also be another’s loss. You had to grasp what scraps you got when you did.

Forrix could live with that jealousy. He always had, always would every time he primarch’s rare signs of favour went to someone else. He had learned his primarch didn’t dislike him _in particular_ , as he had initially feared, but his primarch had no affection for him either. He could live with that, live with anything, if only someone could get under the surface of his primarch’s hostility towards the world like he’d failed to do. If he lost the position he had, even, then he deserved that for not being worthy of it. He would continue to do his duty with all diligence in any way he could. Even if he was never acknowledged for it, he told himself, it would have to be enough to see that Perturabo had whatever it was he needed, rather than living like he did now.

But there was no one else. He missed Dantioch sometimes, of all his brothers exiled to distant garrisons--so strange for an Iron Warrior in his own way, so self-assured, so indifferent to praise or notice as if he were already content within his own self and whatever he had decided in his own mind, so prone to voicing unpopular opinions as a result. Forrix missed his steadiness, his surety, the way they talked for long hours in the dark rather than go their separate ways when they’d finished with each other and _needed_ nothing else. He was used to thinking of his brothers as rivals, and that sort of loose-cannon behaviour and purposeful ignoring of proper chain-of-command was what had lead to the other warsmith’s falling out with their primarch, so that was that.

Perturabo would always be who he was. His Legion wouldn’t want otherwise. Let others deal with the indolence and indulgences of Fulgrim or extracting Curze from hanging upside on the ceiling. He would never wish he had a different primarch, even for the way Dorn looked at Sigismund. Yet there was nothing in the whole galaxy he wanted to change more than the way Perturabo looked at Dorn looking at Sigismund, and Forrix watched him and thought _I could do that for you._

He didn’t want anything more from him. They were iron. They had no desire of softness. That was an easy lie to tell himself. While he could conceive of the concept of sweetness enough to push it aside, his imagination would have been able to go no further. It was too impossibly outside his experiences, to have been able to form a mental image of that.

(He remembered, distantly, a girl he’d once kissed before becoming an Astartes. They’d been children and she had giggled, her blonde braids in the sunlight, the sticky candy they’d shared.)

But he could imagine Perturabo using him roughly, dispassionately, like a tool in his hands only bothered with for a specific purpose. For all that his primarch had refused to do this particular thing with him, it was how he was used in all other aspects of warfare, of life.

( _No,_ Perturabo thinks, _you’re wrong. I would never..._ )

He didn’t mind this. He wondered only: would it feel _right_ , the way rumour said? Would he look content, afterwards? More relaxed or restful, as he sent Forrix away? Would he even smile a fraction?

(He didn’t want to think: Would he look like he did after a campaign? Frustration so built up by a siege that after the walls finally broke the Legion fell into an orgy of destruction against anything that moved in the soft belly now revealed to them, followed by the sickening feeling afterwards when the combat hormones faded of realising what they had done, robbing them of all sense of victory or accomplishment.)

He wants, but all he can do is wait. Forrix is a good soldier. He has been told he is unwanted, that this is not a duty permitted to him to perform, that any attempt at seduction would be taken badly, even if he knew how. He knows his father does not change his mind.

He would wake up hard and aching, ashamed of his fantasies of his primarch holding him down with an uncaring yet unbreakable grip, giving a nod of acknowledgement, maybe even approval, at Forrix obediently spread beneath him. He would close his eyes to savour every feeling, the friction of hard and deep thrusts. He would...

+Seen enough?+

 _I had no interest in seeing that much,_ Perturabo snapped back at Magnus in his mind.

+Understanding others expands the mind. It gives new perspective, especially when one is, perhaps, unable to separate himself from a question enough to see others’ point-of-view.+

 _I resent the suggestion I should be fucking my subordinates ‘for their own good’, that_ I _am selfish for not taking advantage._

+Yet do you feel a certain kinship.+

Perturabo thought a glare very strongly without any need for the physical mechanisms involved. _I am far from approachable, but do not tell me I am to others like those I might resent have been to me. I put great effort into avoiding their abuses, and repeat only what is a right and proper use of a weapon, on the battlefield, not as a harem girl._ No one had ever tried that with him, but he wasn’t that kind of desirable, which for once he was grateful for.

+The diversity of our Legions is the Imperium’s strength, or so I often remind myself when my brothers frustrate me. I wouldn’t tell you another’s way is better, but it is food for thought.+

Elsewhere, called up by Magnus’ mind, Raldoron rolled off Azkaellon, relishing the momentary peace. Why, Azkaellon wasn’t even glaring at him, for all that it might have something to do with his eyes not focuses well enough to do so, still panting from the screaming he’d been doing.

Azkaellon did manage to find something to concentrate on after a moment: their primarch, smiling indulgently. Ignoring Raldoron, he crawled over closer, and Sanguinius beckoned Raldoron to do likewise. The captain of the Sanguinary Guard was hardly his favourite of his brothers, but if they had to tolerate each other and deal with their rivalry, this was certainly the way to do it, with their primarch always a third wheel in whatever happened, even when he didn’t physically laid a hand between them. Best of all, afterwards Sanguinius would kiss both of them and let them cuddle close and sleep under his outstretched wings.

Ahzek Ahriman pushing Magnus’ brush against his mind away. +I _am_ in the middle of something.+ But affectionate. The ease of knowing no more would be demanded of him than he wanted to give, and that there would be a _later_ for things that weren’t urgent or important, and that he could say that to his primarch and have it respected.

Further away, Captain Gaius Braellus of the 158th relaxed in his primarch’s arms. Guilliman was carrying on a conversation with Gage, but his hands kept moving across Braellus’ skin, showing that while he would multitask, he hadn’t forgotten him or lost interest in him as soon as he was done. Even Gage wasn’t actually ignoring him so much as he obviously considered unfamiliar, newly promoted men in their primarch’s bed something to take for granted and unworthy of comment unless he’d had something specific to say.

It was nice. Braellus had never done this before, and was glad it had been like this, with his primarch, so patient and gentle with him, taking care of him. He was still reliving over and over in his mind the pleasure Guilliman had coaxed from him, and his deep satisfaction at his primarch’s enjoyment in turn. He listened to the report, of course; if it hadn’t been meant for his ears then it wouldn’t have been said in front of him. Guilliman would surely ask him about it later as part of his lessons in command. Guilliman’s chest was solid against his back and his palms stroked up and down the muscles of his arms in a firm but soothing massage.

Sigismund laid an arm over Dorn’s shoulders and felt the tiny shifts of weight that were his primarch inviting him to lean against him, adjusting so everything would fit perfectly. Sigismund kissed his cheek, just that, a feather-like brush of lips, and it was enough for his total contentment in the universe.

Dorn turned to him and smiled and it was like the sun. Sigismund--

 _Enough!_ Perturabo bellowed, pulling away as if burned.

+I do wish you would let yourself be happy, brother.+

He did not, could not mind-to-mind, say ‘I am not unhappy.’ It was not impossible to lie that way, only to be believed in a one. He said, _I am not wrong._


End file.
